This book is an attempt to communicate a view of life and culture in Naples that has emerged over years of field research. The original fieldwork in a neighbourhood of the centre was conducted over twenty months between 1984 and 1986. In 1988 I was awarded a Ph.D. in social anthropology from the University of London. Since then I have periodically visited Naples and have carried out further extended fieldwork in 1990/1 and 1992/3. This supplementary field research has allowed me to update the material and, above all, to place the micro-level analysis in a broader sociological context. The result is a substantial revision and expansion of my doctoral dissertation.

Because our anthropological knowledge of urban Europe remains quite limited, Naples confronts the observer with a difficult decision – whether to dismiss it as a chaotic and anarchic place doomed to suicidal extinction through resignation to deprivation, marginality and ruin or to ask whether there is a rationale for its appearance that might explain things differently. If my initial work on belief and thought (1978–83) had left me with a mixture of irritation and intellectual curiosity, my instinct as an anthropologist definitely pointed in the direction of further research. Knowing that superimposing categorical distinctions on the empirical situation may give a neat look to our production but is misleading, I eventually decided to invest some effort in trying to come to terms with the messiness of real people's managing their existence.